The Domain Name System (“DNS”) is the part of the Internet infrastructure that translates human-readable domain names into the Internet Protocol (“IP”) numbers needed to establish TCP/IP communication over the Internet. DNS allows users to refer to web sites, and other resources, using easier to remember domain names, such as “www.example.com”, rather than the numeric IP addresses associated with a website, e.g., 123.4.56.78, and assigned to computers on the Internet. Each domain name can be made up of a series of character strings (e.g., labels) separated by dots. The right-most label in a domain name is known as the top-level domain (“TLD”). Examples of well-known TLDs are “com”; “net”; “org”; and the like. Each TLD supports second-level domains, listed immediately to the left of the TLD, e.g., the “example” level in “www.example.com”. Each second-level domain can include a number of third-level domains located immediately to the left of the second-level domain, e.g. the “www” level in www.example.com.
The responsibility for operating each TLD, including maintaining a registry of the second-level domains within the TLD, can be delegated to a particular organization, known as a domain name registry (“registry”). The registry is primarily responsible for answering queries for IP addresses associated with domains (“resolving”), typically through DNS servers that maintain such information in large databases, and operating its top-level domain.
In some instances, in order to obtain a domain name, that domain name is registered with a registry through a domain name registrar, an entity accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and authorized to register Internet domain names on behalf of end-users. However, some end-users may use a domain name registration service provider that is not accredited by ICANN (herein after a “domain name reseller” or “reseller”) to register the domain name. Because the domain name reseller is not authorized to register domain names on behalf of end-users, the reseller registers the domain names through an accredited registrar. In some situations, a registrar can be associated with a network of multiple resellers and the resellers can be arranged in one or more layers. For example, a first reseller in a first layer of the reseller network can register a domain name through a second reseller in a second layer of the reseller network, and the second reseller can forward the registration request to the registrar and/or provide an interface for the first reseller to communicate with the registrar.
A registrar may provide an interface for resellers to communicate requests to, for example, renew, create, delete, transfer, update, or otherwise manage domain names. The registrars can use the interface to receive the requests and generate corresponding Extensible Provisioning Protocol (“EPP”) requests for transmission to the registry. EPP is generally used by registrars as a vehicle to communicate with the registries in order to register, renew, or manage domain names. The EPP protocol is based on the Extensible Markup Language (“XML”), which is a structured, text-based format. The underlying network transport is not fixed, although the currently specified method is over Transmission Control Protocol (“TCP”).
Certain conditions or contexts of a reseller may dictate verification policies or other compliance issues that may need to be addressed when registering, renewing, and/or managing domain names. For example, certain localities may require domain name registries to comply with local compliance and verification policies to operate registry services within the respective locality. This brings a number of challenges to operating a domain registry service for a TLD outside of the locality when a reseller is operating within the locality and/or the selected domain name invokes rules of the locality. For example, in order to comply with a locality's verification process, data that may be needed to perform verification, for example, of a registrant, a domain name, etc., may be only accessible within the locality.